Vince, I agree with everything you've said.
But, in many ways there are simple consequences that are well understood. For instance, in thermodynamics we deal with extremely complicated many body systems that are in principle, completely unsolvable.
However, you can build models from some basic microscopic principles, throw in some experimental results to fit the curve, throw in some judicious statistics and presto, you have a theory that matches all experiments wonderfully, is predictive and probably the most sucessful scientific theory we have.
In much the same ways, a few microscopic concepts from genetics + some macroscopic concepts + some parameters taken from experiment when applied on some of these simple systems outputs something that has worked for over 20 years.
In that sense, applied biology ultimately works in the same way as thermodynamics theoretically. The mixing of microscopic and macroscopic principles can often produce valid models of the world.
I would argue that many genetic crops fit this category of *theory*. Luckily, they also have been tested in the lab for long periods of time, and the effects on human beings the subject of much scrutiny during this period. When I said, "only exotic possibilities remain", I was reffering to the likely case that the majority of harmful symptoms that these crops may induce in humans are highly insentive to our standard probes and/or are weak enough that they may only appear 20+ years down the line under heavy use.
Of course, the latter possibility will always be hard to isolate, has been negative for some time now, and probably shouldn't effect policy unless a corrobarating theoretical idea or mechanism is available.
But, in many ways there are simple consequences that are well understood. For instance, in thermodynamics we deal with extremely complicated many body systems that are in principle, completely unsolvable.
However, you can build models from some basic microscopic principles, throw in some experimental results to fit the curve, throw in some judicious statistics and presto, you have a theory that matches all experiments wonderfully, is predictive and probably the most sucessful scientific theory we have.
In much the same ways, a few microscopic concepts from genetics + some macroscopic concepts + some parameters taken from experiment when applied on some of these simple systems outputs something that has worked for over 20 years.
In that sense, applied biology ultimately works in the same way as thermodynamics theoretically. The mixing of microscopic and macroscopic principles can often produce valid models of the world.
I would argue that many genetic crops fit this category of *theory*. Luckily, they also have been tested in the lab for long periods of time, and the effects on human beings the subject of much scrutiny during this period. When I said, "only exotic possibilities remain", I was reffering to the likely case that the majority of harmful symptoms that these crops may induce in humans are highly insentive to our standard probes and/or are weak enough that they may only appear 20+ years down the line under heavy use.
Of course, the latter possibility will always be hard to isolate, has been negative for some time now, and probably shouldn't effect policy unless a corrobarating theoretical idea or mechanism is available.